How to make a custom QR Code

Gautam Garg |
December 10, 2015

A QR Code is a great marketing tool to convert offline impressions to online traffic. But they are also black-and-white and ugly. The good news is that they don’t have to be and can be personalized. In this post, we show you how to make a custom QR Code.

How to make a custom QR Code

One advantage of QR Codes over barcodes is that QR Codes have error correction. This means that a QR Code, damaged upto 30%, will still be scannable. This features allows designers to add design (damage) to the QR Code without affecting its scannability.

Creating a custom QR Code is no more difficult than creating a black-and-white QR Code if you are using the right tools.

There are two ways to do this:

1. The long way – Use an image editing tool like Photoshop

For me, this is a tedious job because this is time-consuming and expensive. I’ll need to export the QR Code image in vector format, import into Photoshop/Illustrator, do editing, check if my QR Code is still scannable, and export.

All this assuming, you have Photoshop skills. Otherwise, you need to hire a professional which means more money spent.

The only advantage here is that you have the flexibility to customize the design as much as possible. But that almost never works out because designers focus more on design and less on scannability. What’s the use of a pretty QR Code that doesn’t work?

2. The easy way – Use a QR Code Designer tool

There are great tools out there that are specifically-designed for making custom QR Codes. For example, using Scanova QR Code Designer, you can:

Create a Custom QR Code

Gautam Garg is a Co-founder of Scanova. He is a QR Code enthusiast and a big fan of inbound marketing, CRO, and usability. When taking a break, he likes to travel solo and eat spicy food. Follow him on Twitter @GGarg88